North Wales

At the beginning of August, I spent a glorious, relaxing five days in North Wales with my cousins. I already gave you a sneak peek of how beautiful it is over there. It's stunning, really. I'm super grateful that my cousins have a place out there and invited me along with them, because otherwise I doubt that I would have made it to North Wales--perhaps even Wales at all--on my own. And that would have been a shame. But the fact is, Wales seems a bit less accessible for tourists. Maybe if you a) knew how to drive a manual transmission and b) weren't terrified to drive on the left-hand side of the road, unlike me, and rented a car, it would be a different story. Because you definitely need a car over there, and I was grateful, once again, to have my superb hosts to proudly show off the region to me.

The family cottage is near the town of Denbigh. It's about a five-hour drive from London. Since my cousins were spending a long amount of time up there, I decided to meet them partway through their vacation. I took the train to the city of Chester, about forty minutes away, where they kindly met me at the station. We spent the afternoon wandering around the town, which is a lovely medieval place. I need to keep a tally of all the lovely medieval towns I've visited so far on this trip. Several. Chester was a great one. We had tea in the refectory of the cathedral (note: cathedrals and abbeys in England often have the best tea rooms) and walked around on top of the town's old medieval city walls. Seriously! You can still walk on them, thus continuing with a centuries-old tradition, when fancy rich Englishmen and women would promenade around the city walls. It was the thing to do in Chester. And it still is, apparently, even for the non-rich and non-fancy folk.

Chester!

Tea inside the Refectory of the Chester Cathedral.

The Cathedral Close.

Walking the city walls of Chester.

Oh look, a castle! Annddd a parking lot.

Continuing on along the city wall, only the city has grown a bit beyond the wall in the last several hundred years.

Old privies in the back gardens of old homes.

Roman stuff.

Levels of history. Photo taken from a medieval wall, with modern and Victorian buildings in the background, and the remains of a Roman amphitheatre in the middle.

Beyond random.

I had another chance to walk on medieval walls, even nicer ones, if you can believe it, in Conwy, a seaside town about an hour's drive from the cottage. Conwy is a perfect little medieval town, complete with a crumbling castle and narrow, twisted lanes. It also happens to have a lovely, Caribbean-blue bay (at least, it was blue on the sunny day I was there). We wandered along the city walls and explored the ruins of Conwy Castle.

Conwy, as seen from high up on part of the medieval city walls. Walking along medieval city walls will be one of the best memories of my trip. Unfreakin' believable.

Britain's smallest house, y'all.

Me and Conwy Castle. Despite being in Wales, it's a castle the English built to keep out the Welsh.

In the bowels of the castle.

And up to its top!

I had my own princess-in-a-tower moment. Excuse me.

For the most part, though, my days in North Wales were laaaazzy days. It was my cousins’ summer vacation, which meant that I was also on a vacation--in the middle of my holiday. I needed it, too--I don’t know if it has come across well enough in this blog, but I have been busy ever since I came to the UK in early July. It’s been wonderful, but it’s also been fairly non-stop touristing (not a typo). So having a chance to spend entire days doing absolutely nothing was wonderful. Luxurious. And the fact that I got to spend my days doing nothing in beautiful countryside/seaside with a wonderful branch of my family that I’m so happy I’ve had a chance to get to know--well, all the better.

Thirty-odd years ago, my parents visited the cottage. My mom still remembers the view from their front door. I’ve already teased you with a photo of the view--let me give you some more now. It was basically the definition of pastoral Britain.

See their car? See the road next to it? See the hedges lining the road? There is no such thing as passing. You have to honk before going around corners because there are so many blind ones. Jeez.

View from my window. Yes, those are sheep! I could hear them baa-ing. Gosh.

View from the front door.

More neighbours.

And another one!

Okay, so here follows a bunch of photos taken from our regular evening walks partway up the hill. They're from different days, so the lighting will vary.

On clear days, of which we had several, you can see out to the Irish Sea, to the wind turbines and oil rigs.

I was at the cottage with my London hosts, Anthony and Sue, and also their daughter, Hannah, her husband, Kwok, and their two adorable kids, Mia and Caleb. We baked scones together. We bonded. And one day we spent the afternoon wandering the wooded hills near a former lead mine, a short drive from their family cottage.

Another day we just lazed on the beach. We drove out to Rhos-on-the-Sea, a tiny little seaside village situated on the Irish Sea. Little five year-old Mia spent the afternoon hunting for fossils and interesting looking rocks, while her little brother Caleb played with his toy cars and bulldozers. Kwok showed off his impressive stone-skipping skills with flat rocks that his daughter found for him, and the rest of us grown-ups just lolled about on sand made from tiny shell particles. Not suitable for sandcastle building, alas, but perfectly fine for sitting on and dozing on. It was a cool, overcast day, but not wet, so that counts as a good day in Wales.

Lazy days.

Fish and chips at the beach, minus the fish, of course.

This is the best photo I got of the Chong family. It's pretty representative, I think.

I felt so deliciously lazy that day on the beach that even reading felt like too much bother. We had some more active days, too, and every night save one we hiked halfway up the large hill-mountain behind the cottage, a not insignificant achievement. We even got the little kiddies to come along one evening. The way we got them up the hill was by threatening to tickle them with branches of wheat--and, when that failed, by getting them to try to tickle me.

On our last day in North Wales, it was just Tony and Sue and I again--Hannah and Kwok and their kiddies had gone back to home to Cambridge (where I’ve visited them earlier in the summer). The cottage had belonged to Sue’s parents, both now passed away, and is shared amongst all the grandkids on that side--Hannah’s generation. There’s a constant flow of people in and out of that place during the summer, so we had to spent part of our last day tidying up a bit and ensuring everything was in order for the next people. But we did save a few hours in the afternoon to hike all the way up to the top of the hill-mountain behind the house. Public footpaths lead through fields of sheep and, higher up, wild heather. It was a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful blue-sky summer afternoon. Lovely doesn’t really even begin to describe it.

Almost there...

There! (There, incidentally, is also the site of a Bronze Age burial mound. Because that place couldn't have gotten more impressive.)

Heading down again.

I lagged behind so I could take silly pictures like this.

Suffice it to say, it was with considerable sadness that we packed up and drove off from that cottage, that view.

P.S. Even in North Wales, look what I found:

This was a bit of an odd cream tea that came with cheese, tomato and onion sandwiches, too. Let's call it "Cream tea plus." I'm still gonna count it, though.

CREAM TEA COUNT: 10